Sarah Kolb – If She Couldn’t Have Her For Herself Then She’d Kill Her

Sarah Kolb, Cory Gregory And Nathan Gaudet

Adrianne Reynolds

As a nurse who works in an acute care setting, I find myself able to stomach the sort of things that those who choose other career paths might not be able to tolerate.

A lunch break where I work usually involves eating as quickly as we possibly can, and being frequently interrupted to attend to situations that might ruin the average appetite. After cleaning up blood or other bodily substances, I wash my hands and return to our half-eaten meal for a couple more bites. That’s right…while a sick patient is losing their lunch, I am often holding their emesis basin wondering when I will be able to finish my lunch.

But even my well-trained stomach took one hell of a leap when I read that after Sarah Kolb, 16, Cory Gregory, 17, and Nathan Gaudet, 16, dismembered the body of Adrianne Reynolds, they stopped at McDonald’s to enjoy some cheeseburgers before moving on to the dump site that they chose for the head and arms of their victim. A few days later, Cory Gregory lost the battle with his own conscience, and investigators were finally able to inform the Reynolds family that their daughter would not be coming home.

Adrianne Reynolds

Adrianne Reynolds

Sixteen-year-old Adrianne Reynolds was much like any other teenage girl. Life was not perfect for her in Longview, Texas, so to improve her situation she moved in with her adopted father and step-mother in East Moline, Illinois.

She was a talented singer, enjoyed performing songs for others, and could move listeners to tears with the sound of her voice. Unfortunately, she did not take a great interest in school, and with no high school credits to her name, she enrolled at Black Hawk College Outreach to obtain her GED.

It was at this alternative high school where she met Sarah Kolb and Cory Gregory in November of 2004. Although they initially hit it off, the friendship quickly turned sour when Sarah Kolb became jealous of the new girl in school who was attracting many of the boys. According Gregory’s testimony, Sarah was bisexual and had been interested in dating Adrianne herself, which only contributed to her jealously.

After a heated argument in December, Adrianne tried desperately to repair their friendship, while Sarah Kolb had a different sort of resolution in mind. She told several classmates and even wrote in her journal of her intentions to kill Adrianne.

Sarah Kolb

On January 21, 2005, when Sarah Kolb and Cory invited her to lunch to discuss the friendship, Adrianne accepted and got into the car with them. The classmates drove to a nearby Taco Bell parking lot where drama between the two girls erupted in broad daylight during the busy lunch hour.

What exactly happened in the car is unclear, because after their arrests Cory and Sarah Kolb did exactly what anyone would expect-they pointed fingers at each other. Witnesses at Taco Bell that day were unable to shed much light on the situation because the winter air outside caused the car windows to fog up, thus preventing a clear view of the inside of the car.

Yes, that is correct, there were witnesses who saw that something was happening in the car, but quickly shrugged it off as being nothing more than teenagers goofing around. Prosecutors believe the story that the two allegedly shared with Nathan Gaudet; that Cory held Adrianne’s arms while Sarah beat her with a wooden handle and strangled her with a belt.

Cory Gregory

Cory Gregory

“They just started swinging at each other and then Adrianne hits Sarah in the nose. Sara’s nose started bleeding. So Sarah grabbed this wooden stick that she keeps in her car for def — protection, she says, and started to hit her a couple times with it and they kept fighting and wrestling and it moved to the back seat.

Sarah’s on top of Adrianne and she’s choking Adrianne and then Adrianne goes out and Sarah gets off her and sits in the car – sits back in the front seat. We sit there and smoke a cigarette for awhile.”

Regardless of what actually occurred in that car, these two teenagers were responsible for the beating and strangling death of Adrianne Reynolds, and they went on to prove this when they tried to dispose of the body. The duo drove to another location, put Adrianne’s body in the trunk of the car, and headed out to a farm owned by Sarah’s grandparents.

Dateline

Cory Gregory: “We pour the gasoline on her and light her on fire.”

Rob Stafford, Dateline correspondent: “Who poured the gas?”

Cory Gregory: “I poured the gasoline on the tarp.”

Stafford: “Who lit the match?”

Cory Gregory: “It was a butane lighter. I used the lighter and lit it and then Sarah and I, we just stood away and Sarah laid her head on my shoulder. She just started crying, you know, so I tried to sit there and comfort her.”

While the Reynold’s family was notifying police that their daughter had not shown up to work at Checker’s restaurant and that they believed she was missing, Cory and Sarah Kolb were trying to figure out what to do next with Adrianne, because she didn’t turn to ash as they expected she would.

Cory Gregory: “Sarah decides we need to get the body off the land and says, ‘We gotta cut the body up.’ Sarah’s trying to talk me into doing it. I’m like, ‘No, you know, I can’t do that, you know.’ Lighting a fire’s one thing, but I can’t cut up a body. It ain’t right.”

Stafford: “None of this is right, Cory.”

Cory Gregory: “I know, I know, none of this is right, but I told her, ‘I can’t do this, you know. I won’t do it.’

Cory Gregory: “(Nathan Gaudet’s) into blood and gore. He was the type of kid that’d go around killing animals and stuff, so Sarah figured he might help.”

Nathan Gaudet

The Manhole

The following day, Cory and Sarah Kolb enlisted their friend Nathan Gaudet to help them dispose of the body. Nathan, who they knew had a fascination with blood, gore, and killing animals, accompanied the other two teens to the farm with his grandfather’s handsaw, where he proceeded to dismember Adrianne. They dumped the torso and legs in a nearby ravine, and after grabbing a bite to eat, they drove to Black Hawk Historic Site where they buried the rest of her several feet below a manhole cover.

A few days later, Cory broke down and confessed to his parents and then to the police, telling his version of what happened to Adrianne:

Bert Gregory, Cory Gregory’s father: “He started crying. And I started asking him questions, and he started breaking down. He started crying more. So I knew something was up.”

“I just couldn’t even say anything. I just cried and hugged him. And he says, ‘Mom, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.’ At that point my heart was so broken, I didn’t even have words.”

“I said, ‘Did something happen to her in that car?’ And he started shaking his head, yes. He couldn’t talk.”

“I said, ‘Did she get hurt in the car?’ Shook his head yes. I said, ‘Did she get hurt bad? He said really, really a lot.’ I said, ‘Is she dead?’ He shook his head yes. I said, ‘Well where’ she at?’ He just couldn’t – he couldn’t talk.”

The Pieces Start Coming Together

Cory Gregory claimed that his participation in the crime was only to help the girl he was in love with, Sarah Kolb, because he did not want her to go to jail. Fortunately, despite Cory’s original efforts, Sarah was tried as an adult. Unfortunately, on Wednesday, November 16th, 2005, Kolb’s first trial ended in a mistrial, after the jury failed to agree on a verdict.

Testimony began for Sarah Kolb’s retrial began on February 8th, 2006, and three weeks later she was found guilty of two counts of first degree murder and one count of concealing a homicide, and was sentenced to 53 years behind bars.

Cory Gregory pled guilty to the same crimes in May of 2005 and will be serving a fabulous 45 years for his supposed minimal participation. On, December 17th, 2009, his latest appeal was denied by the 3rd District Appellate Court Of Illinois. Part of his complaint was that he should have gotten a lesser sentence because he was the one who lead authorities to Adrienne’s remains buried in Blackhawk State Park in Rock Island.

Buyers Remorse

Seriously folks, Gregory’s appeal actually whined about that very thing (or words to that effect). The year before, when Cory Gregory’s appeal was heard before the Circuit Court, the judge called it a case of buyer’s remorse, referring to Gregory’s demand to withdraw his guilty plea and be given a new trial.

Nathan Gaudet

Unfortunately, the justice system failed Adrianne during the sentencing phase for Nathan. Plea bargaining, and his age at the time of the crime, earned him a puny sentence of five years in juvenile detention. Yes, that is correct – after doing the math in your head you have probably concluded the horrifying truth. He was released from juvenile detention on November 11, 2008, after serving almost four years. On April 16, 2012, Nathan Gaudet died in an automobile accident in Indiana.